


Green Eyed Monster

by malyce



Category: Moulin Rouge! (2001)
Genre: Jealousy, One-Sided Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-14
Updated: 2013-06-14
Packaged: 2017-12-15 00:09:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/843029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/malyce/pseuds/malyce
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nini's world is not as black and white as it seems.  One-sided Christian/Nini.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Green Eyed Monster

Satine's dressing room was dark, and a pale green light illuminated her possessions. No one but Nini would have dared approach this room. She was sitting at the dressing table, tracing the gold filigree decorations with her fingernails and trying not to think about Satine. Her death hadn’t made Nini nearly as happy as she thought it would have. The dancer scoffed. She should have been in Hell’s Café drinking absinthe and dancing with the patrons. The bitch had gotten everything Nini had ever wanted.  
  
It had taken Toulouse and Zidler what seemed like an eternity to pry Christian from her side. Nini could hear their muffled voices in the next room.  
  
“I can’t leave her!” Christian sobbed.  
  
“You need to stay here,” Zidler argued, in the same calm, rational tone he used with the dancers, “it’s for your own good. I promise we’ll take care of everything.” Something hit the wall, and Nini jumped.  
  
“What do you mean you’ll take care of everything?” Christian yelled, “You didn’t tell me she was dying, you were going to force her to marry him, and now you tell me it’s for my own good?” Despite her melancholy mood, Nini smiled. She half wanted to applaud Christian.  
  
The first night he came to the Moulin Rouge, Nini had noticed him even amid the decadent chaos. He stood out in the middle of the bohemians, nervously fidgeting with his top hat. He looked nothing like the bordello’s usual patrons. She had a sneaking suspicion that he might have been the son of a wealthy statesman, looking to pay for his so called journey to manhood. Frightened virgins had always been her favorite customers.  
  
Of course, he fell in love with Satine. Who wouldn’t have? Satine was beautiful and special and adored by everyone; Nini was not. For all he cared, she might have been a set piece for the play. He was nothing like the men she usually entertained. Those interactions made some kind of sense. Christian, with his annoying innocence didn’t understand the way his presence grated on her. If he could have just stopped ogling Satine with that blatant, naked adoration for one moment, perhaps Nini wouldn’t have felt the need to torment the young writer.  
  
He was always polite to everyone, but she had reveled in the rush of power that came from baiting him during rehearsal. She didn’t want his polite distance, even if he was one of the few men who had ever bothered to address her as “mademoiselle” rather than “whore.” He extended the same courtesy to everyone who was involved in rehearsal. Nini wanted to be special.  
  
She had quickly learned that dirty jokes made him uncomfortable. As a result, she made a point of talking about her customers loudly and graphically at every rehearsal. It had always given her a perverse, temporary satisfaction to see Christian clench his teeth together to avoid blushing as he pretended not to hear her.  
  
That kind of satisfaction was only temporary. As rehearsals progressed, Nini needed to provoke him further just to feel the same thrill. She continued pushing him during each rehearsal, loving the fact that she could render him unable to concentrate on the task at hand.  
  
When Nini had a moment alone with the duke, she had paused for a moment to consider her options. If she told the nobleman that his prized possession was actually dallying with the writer, it could be very dangerous for all of them. Oh, but the opportunity to twist the knife in Christian’s heart was just too good to refuse.  
  
When Satine was spending the night with the duke in the gothic tower, Nini could hardly restrain herself from needling him, just to see how far she could push him. Just having him there, his body so close to hers, his hot, angry breath drifting across her neck and collarbone had sent shivers down her body. It didn’t require much imagination to figure out how his lips would feel as they traveled across the side of her neck and across her jaw.  
  
When he had released her, there had been fear in his eyes. The poor writer had never even dreamed of striking a woman before, and Nini had driven him to that point. She had never felt more deliciously powerful. Nini wasn’t sure if it was disappointment or relief she had felt when he released her, but she had known that her cackling laughter would anger him. At the time, that had been enough.  
  
After a few moments of silence, she heard the door creak open. Christian’s silhouette passed in front of the door to Satine’s dressing room. Nini looked up from the dressing table.  
  
“Hey there, Shakespeare,” she said softly. Christian looked startled.  
  
“Why are you in her dressing room?” he inquired. Nini shrugged.  
  
“No where else to go, I guess. How you holding out, anyway?” It was a stupid question, and Nini knew it.  
  
“I don’t think you should be here,” he told Nini. The dancer narrowed her eyes at him.  
  
“I didn’t kill her,” she snapped, “so unless you’re looking to make a night of it,” she traced her fingernail suggestively over the bodice of her skimpy Indian costume, “I’ve got nothing to say to you.”  
  
Nini knew from experience that most men would have accepted her offer. Christian wasn’t most men. She had expected the look of horrified disgust that had passed over his face, but it still wounded her.  
  
“I can’t believe you,” he growled, “you’re in her room when she’s not even cold, and you’re… you’re…”  
  
“Propositioning you?” Nini offered helpfully, “You seem like you could use a little up and down motion right now, and it’s not like she’s good for that any-.”  
  
Before she could say another word, Christian grabbed Nini’s wrist and jerked her forcefully from the dressing table. He was even stronger than she realized. His face was inches from hers, close enough for her to see the red splotches that his tears had created.  
  
Was he going to kiss her? Shove her against the wall? Anything would have been preferable to this tense silence.  
  
As if trying to regain his sense of direction, Christian shook his head and forced Nini out of Satine’s room. He slammed the door behind him, glaring at her as she fell against the opposite wall. The sound echoed across the dark hallway.  
  
“Like I said,” Nini told him, “you and me, we’ve got nowhere else to go.”  
  
“That’s not true,” he said. Christian left Nini sitting in the narrow hallway between the two dressing rooms. He didn't even have the decency to curse her or to call her names. She slammed her palm against the wall for the sheer satisfaction of at least getting to destroy something, and then lowered her head into her crossed arms.  
  
She had forgotten how to cry after her first night in the Moulin Rouge. She had only been fifteen back then, and had been shoved rather forcefully into someone else’s bed. Zidler had told her, in the same soothing tone he had used with Christian, that it was better just to think about the money and do her job.  
  
It did no good to feel or to want, and she wished she could shove her strange emotions back into the dark place, where everything was suppressed and then destroyed by a callous remark at someone else’s expense.  
  
The naïve young writer had complicated her world. She couldn’t decide if she hated him or loved him all the more for it. Her entire body convulsed painfully as she began to slow, agonizing process of shedding tears. She had never _really_ forgotten.


End file.
